Nazca

Nazca is a fascinating outpost that is supported primarily by the tourist money that comes in because of the Nazca Lines. Fifty dollars for a half-hour ride surely makes some of the locals good money (hundreds of tourists take the flights every day), although the wealth clearly doesn’t reach most of the residents. The town’s main street, frequented by passing tourists, looks as much like Disneyland as Peru.

Just a block off the main street, however, Nazca resembles the rest of the country. And from there the surrounding mountains are also obviously visible.

Another few blocks from the town center is a dry river that separates the main part of town, no rich enclave itself, from poorer areas that become shanties farther out.